A long history of research has considered the role of iconicity in language and the existence and role of nonarbitrary properties in language and the use of language. Previous studies with Japanese-speaking children, whose language defines a large grammatical class of words with clear sound symbolism, suggest that iconicity properties in Japanese may aid early verb learning, and a recent extended work suggests that such early sensitivity is not limited to children whose language supports such word classes. The present study further considers the use of sound-symbolic words in verb-learning context by conducting systematic cross-linguistic comparisons on early exposure to and effect of sound symbolism in verb mapping. Experiment 1 is an observational study of how English- and Japanese-speaking parents talk about verbs. More conventionalized symbolic words were found in Japanese-speaking parental input, and more idiosyncratic use of sound symbolism was found in English-speaking parental input. Despite this different exposure of iconic forms to describe actions, the artificial verb-learning task in Experiment 2 revealed that children in both language groups benefit from sound–meaning correspondences for their verb learning. These results together confirm more extensive use of conventionalized sound symbolism among Japanese speakers and also support a cross-linguistic consistency of the effect, which has been documented in the recent work. The work also points to the potential value of understanding the contexts in which sound–meaning correspondences matter in language learning.

中文翻译：

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儿童动词学习中声音象征的跨语言研究


长期以来的研究已经考虑了象似性在语言中的作用以及语言中非任意属性的存在和作用以及语言的使用。以前对日语儿童的研究表明，日语中的象似性特性可能有助于早期动词学习，他们的语言定义了大量具有清晰声音象征意义的语法单词，而最近的一项扩展研究表明，这种早期敏感性并不仅限于那些患有日语的儿童。语言支持此类词类。本研究通过对动词映射中声音象征的早期接触和影响进行系统的跨语言比较，进一步考虑在动词学习环境中使用声音象征词。实验 1 是一项关于英语和日语父母如何谈论动词的观察性研究。在日语母语的父母输入中发现了更传统的符号词，在英语母语的父母输入中发现了更特殊的声音象征主义使用。尽管描述动作的标志形式有所不同，但实验 2 中的人工动词学习任务表明，两种语言组的儿童都受益于动词学习的音义对应。这些结果共同证实了日语使用者更广泛地使用了传统的声音象征，并且还支持了该效果的跨语言一致性，这已在最近的工作中得到记录。这项工作还指出了理解音义对应在语言学习中很重要的背景的潜在价值。